2621. CONCERNING DAVID; CONCERNING THOSE WHO ARE [IN] THE DELIGHT OF ADULTERY AND CRUELTY. When I read those things which [are written] concerning the adultery of David with Bathsheba, and concerning his cruelty to the sons of Ammon, there was presented quite a long time, for some days, [one] whom they called David, with whom I spoke. I supposed that he would have been amongst the righteous; but if he is [David], or is one who presents his person to me, as is wont to happen, then is [David] such a leader of adulteries and the cruel as derive from adulteries and from cruelty the highest pleasantness; and [he is] besides subtle or pernicious, because his phantasy reaches higher than others. I have heard that [by those things] which in his life he wrote in the Psalms he understood himself and not Messiah, whom he also had knowledge of; but whether he has believed in Jehovah the God of Israel, I do not yet know. - 1748, July 16. - See 2 Sam. 12:31.